The first snow! Light and thick as swan's-down, it wraps the shivering bosom of mother earth. Last night I went to sleep with an uncurtained window before me, and the still, bright stars looking in; I awoke to find the air dim and heavy with snow, and all the treetops bending in graceful gratitude; and to think aloud the lines,
"Oh! if our souls were but half as white
As the beautiful snow that fell last night!"
I do not like this vague kind of unrest, and this dissatisfaction with myself which returns so often. I am willing to be dissatisfied, but I want to know exactly with what, that I may mend. I believe the trouble partly is that I do not, cannot, love very much the people that I see oftenest. Their thoughts and ways are so different from mine I cannot comfortably walk with them. It seems to me as if we were like travelers on the same journey, but in paths wide apart; and we can only make one another hear by effort and shouting. Whether this is wrong, or simply one of the things that cannot be helped, I cannot clearly see; but I am afraid that I am too willing to excuse myself for so doing.
SOURCE: Daniel Dulany Addison, Lucy Larcom: Life, Letters, and Diary, p. 113-4
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